Category: Operating Systems

I’ve had OS/2 running in a virtual machine for years; specifically, a Virtual PC one. But I’ve always known that OS/2 has idiosyncracies, such that it won’t run in VMWare (although it’s getting better in VirtualBox).

By change I stumbled on the excellent site OS/2 Museum. The whole site is fascinating, and if you’re interested in the history of OS/2, or Windows, for that matter, it is a great read.

Those of you who’ve been reading here a while will know I used to be a huge fan of ClearType. Huge fan! I thought it made fonts really readable.

Then, about two years ago, I started to get headaches. Big, nasty headaches. So I tried fiddling with display options – upped the refresh rate (sort-of worked, for a while), changed the colour scheme… Eventually I found if I turned off ClearType, the headaches went away. Finally, I could get back to the day job.

My own personal rules for effective computing:
1. Don’t buy anything with ‘Norton’ written on it, unless the next word is ‘Ghost’.
2. Don’t buy any program without consulting osliving.com. Open source is often faster, more effective, and doesn’t provide features you don’t need.
3. Half the computer companies are brands of another. Check who belongs to whom, then use Google Shopping to find the cheapest supplier. The product and warranty will be the same, just the price will be cheaper.
4. A 2GHz AMD processor is as fast as a 3GHz Intel, but costs less than a 2GHz Intel.
5. Memory is the cheapest, easiest, and most effective upgrade you’ll ever buy.
6. Most users don’t use anything most Linux distributions won’t give you for free.
7. Free antivirus is better than no antivirus at all, but the best antivirus money can buy is no substitute for common sense.